Making Unlovable Choices
by alli524
Summary: The events that took place leading to Dani leaving home, moving to New York and meeting Santana. Setting up for Dantana relationship. Welcome to reviews and suggestions!
1. Where to?

It had taken Danielle fifteen years to realise that she was different.  
Looking back, she really should have known earlier.

Even as a kid, when all of the other girls in her year were spewing lines from Bring It On and talking about how funny and cool the movie had been, Dani found herself more mesmerized by the outfits and the dancing, and how amazing a girl could look when she spun or flew or even just smiled.  
It was okay for a girl to tell another girl that she looked pretty. It was fine for girls to touch each other or hug or kiss as a way of showing affection or closeness.  
Dani assumed that all girls felt the way that she did.  
And when they swooned over the boys from Hanson and Jonathan Taylor Thomas, she supposed that, yes, they were quite good looking, but no, she _didn't_ want to kiss them or even think about them like that.  
And all of her friends had giggled with her and they all agreed that there would come a time or a boy that would make her change her mind. Eventually.  
So she waited, but the feelings never came.

But one day, Loren walked into her class.  
Loren had moved from Rio Rancho. She was gorgeous and mature and self-assured.  
Perhaps it was just one of the effects of moving around so much and having to change school so often; Loren didn't care what the other kids were saying. She'd leave them soon, anyway, so their opinions didn't matter.  
To Dani, who had been hiding her sexuality, even from herself, out of fear of the way she'd be looked at or treated, this was the most incredible superpower. And more than her figure or her face, it was what Dani thought was most attractive about her.  
She was thicker than the other girls that Dani had grown up with in Albuquerque; she looked more like a woman than any fifteen year old than Dani had ever seen, with deep set eyes and dark hair that rolled all the way down her back.  
She was brassy but mostly kept to herself and was bullied by girls and boys alike because of the intimidation that she brew in them.

Dani befriended her, although it was torture to ignore the ache in her stomach that occurred whenever Loren leaned too close or told her about the crush she had on the boy that threw the least amount of spitballs at her.  
Loren left after only a year and no one seemed to notice, not even Hunter who had dated her for three weeks, Simon who'd kissed her twice, or Wes who claimed to have slept with her once.  
But she'd torn something open in Dani.

* * *

Dani was freshly nineteen and in her last year at school when she was dating Ginny.  
Well... dating was being generous. They'd so far just been resigned to quickies in the back of Ginny's car and making out in secret. And their txt life was pretty steamy.  
Dani was almost relieved when her father caught them in the basement. Maybe now she could be in a real relationship, like all of her friends were.

"Fuck," Ginny said, gathering her things and shooting to her feet.  
She left the room quicker than Dani had ever seen her move and she was left with her father.  
Silence stretched in the small distance between them as Dani tried to fight off the smile that she could feel pressing on her mouth.  
"We don't have to tell your mother," he said finally.  
"Sorry?"  
"This can stay between us," he said, his hands reaching for his throat and the crucifix that he kept there. It took a few goes to find it, he fumbled a little and finally grasped it, pressing it between his thumb and forefinger.  
"Okay," she said, considering it, "That's a good idea; we'll wait until after graduation and then I can come out properly."  
"There will be no _'coming out'_!"

Dani's head snapped up to see her father. There was so much power in his voice that she felt herself shrink back to being a little girl. She felt scared and wrong and wanted to nod and agree and feel her father's arms around her.  
But only for a second.  
"Dad, it's okay," she said softly, "I've known for a while and it takes a bit of getting used to but-"  
Dani felt something strike her face. It felt heavy and hard, and threw her to the floor. It took her a few seconds to realise that her father had hit her. She still didn't believe it; looked around for another reason that her face was in pain and her eyes were watering. The impact was much too strong. For that kind of force, her father would have had to had thrown himself at her.  
But then she saw the pain and fury in his eyes and heard him whisper.  
"This is _not _'okay'," he was so full of hate that it transformed him, "_You_ are not okay. And _you are not my daughter._"  
He turned and left and Dani stayed in a heap on the floor.  
She'd never been hit by her father. The angriest she'd ever seen him was only jokingly, when he came back from a fishing trip empty handed. He wasn't a man that maddened easily. Yet this...  
Dani tucked her legs under her chin and sobbed gently, cupping her own face.  
She wished that Ginny would come back.

Dani stayed on the floor until she heard her father stop shouting upstairs. He was on the phone to her mother.  
She brought herself to her feet and climbed the stairs with a heaviness that made it hard to take each step.  
She felt dizzy and sore and concentrated on the pain in her right cheek to keep her mind off of the betrayal and hurt that she felt.  
It wasn't working.  
_ Maybe _I'm_ the one who's wrong, _Dani thought to herself, _my father's not an unreasonable man._  
She coughed, choking on tears, and knew that that wasn't right.  
It wasn't a phase. She couldn't fight who she was for her father.  
She deserved to be happy and herself.  
She rounded the corner to her room and threw the door open.  
_ Maybe he'll come around. _she thought.  
Her eyes flickered up to her reddened reflection and she forced herself to look away, blinking back more tears and anger.  
She sat on her bed, trying to fight away more lies that she would tell herself. She knew what was right; what to do. She had to leave and be herself. She flew up and threw open her closet, taking out her largest bag; a camel duffel, and tossing it onto her bed.  
She scooped up her clothes and heaped them into the bag. She packed quickly and lightly, wanting to avoid an encounter with her mother.

"You're overreacting."  
_ Too late._ _Mom's home._  
_ "_I think_ Dad's_ the one overreacting," Dani said, pointing to her face.  
"We can talk about this, Danielle," her mother said calmly, "you're not..."  
Her mother trailed off. Dani watched her face contort, as if saying the word was physically painful.  
"_Gay_." she ended the sentence in a whisper.  
Dani stopped packing for a second to look up at her mother.  
"Do you still love me?"  
"Of course, don't be ridiculous."  
"Don't be flippant; _do you love me_?" Dani asked more forcefully, staring her mother down.  
Her mother pursed her lips.  
"I don't love the decisions you've made with that girl," she said coldly, "but I love the person you could choose to be - the woman who is going to grow up and stop this nonsense and lead a good life."

Dani felt herself harden and she finished packing, tying the bag at the top and throwing it around her shoulder.  
Her hand closed over her own crucifix and her hands raised around her own neck to the back, where she found the clasp and expertly undid it. She let the chain slide into her palm and she held it there for a second.

"I will always love you, Mom," she said seriously, her face stony, "But I don't love the decisions you've made."  
She took an even breath, her hands still and calm, her heart bouncing around in her chest like a pinball.  
"This is who I am," she said, sliding her hand into her mother's and letting the necklace fall out of her grip and into her mother's, "You can always call me."  
That's when the abuse started; her mother and father's voices shouting slurs and challenging her, telling her that she was wrong and that she'd come back. Dani closed the door as slowly as she could, finding slight enjoyment in the way their voices dissolved as she walked away.

* * *

Dani stepped out of the cafe line with the bread roll in her hands and gulped it down almost without breathing.  
It had been a four hour flight to New York, she'd arrived in the middle of the night and she was starving.  
She brushed the crumbs clumsily off of her and rushed into the bathroom, shutting the door behind her and throwing her bags onto the floor, immediately regretting her decision as her eyes cast over the filthy surface.  
She dug a hand into her pocket and pulled out what was left of her savings. She counted it all out three times, and then a fourth just to be sure. She sighed and shoved it back in, disappointed at the pitiful amount that she'd been left with.  
But Dani refused to let herself think that she'd made the wrong decision; this was right. She was going to find a job and be discovered and become a famous musician and then go on talk shows and tell the sad story about her asshole parents and how they drove her out of her home.  
Dani threw her pack and guitar back over her shoulder and left the cafe, breathing in the smoggy New York air.  
"Where to, now?"


	2. Taking Flight

_TWO MONTHS LATER_

* * *

Dani rose from bed slowly, rolling over to check the time on her laptop with a lazy swipe at the keypad. The screen sprang to life and she squinted her eyes at the number on the screen.

_11:07_

"Ugh," she moaned, pulling herself up.  
She'd spent all of last night and most of the morning at the diner and hadn't fallen asleep until well after eight.  
She pulled her laptop down off of her bedside table and placed it on her lap, blinking slowly.  
She clicked open her email and pressed refresh, lifting last night's coffee cup off of the table and inspecting the contents. There was still a third of the liquid in the bottom. She braced herself for the cold, bitter taste and drained it, gagging.  
Her emails still hadn't loaded so she inspected the bottom corner of her screen. The wifi was disconnected.  
Dani groaned, bringing up the wifi controls and staring at the empty box where the password should go.  
Her upstairs neighbours changed their password fortnightly, though Dani had paid them thirty bucks and they'd given her their password for one of those weeks. It had only taken her a glance to notice that the two letters and numbers coincided with the initials and birth date of President Nixon. When the password changed and her wifi rights revoked, Dani just tried several other Presidents until one of them worked.  
Dani had a great memory for dates and names and had so far never guessed the password wrong more than three or four times in a row before she landed on the right one.

She drummed her fingers against the mug in her hand, trying to remember what names she hadn't used yet.  
_'Grover Cleveland? Nope, used that one. Chester A. Arthur... James Garfield...'  
_She sighed and tapped out her first guess.

_WM012943_

She watched as her choice loaded and then finally took, announcing that she was now connected. Dani grinned wide and sat up a little straighter.  
"Thank you, William McKinley," she laughed, clicking refresh, once again, on her email.  
She groaned when this still brought up no results.

Dani had been sending out demos to every music producing company she'd ever heard of or researched and still hadn't heard back from any of them.  
To cheer herself up, she opened up her online banking and squealed.  
That week's pay had gone in that morning.  
Upon arriving in New York, Dani had been hired by 'The Creepy Gunther' of the Spotlight Diner. He was dodgy and racist, but he'd given her a job so she was grateful. And figured she'd just have to shut up about being Hispanic and gay while she was around him.  
So far, she'd had to pay bonds and rent and all sorts of other things; this was the first time some of her pay was actually going to go into her pocket.  
She snapped her laptop shut and pushed it off of her lap, rising to spend her pitiful earnings.

* * *

The store on the corner looked small, filthy, unhygienic and terrifying, but Dani took a deep breath and stepped in, anyway.  
There was no one behind the reception desk and the only other person was sitting near the back of the store, stretched out on a long bench, sketching something onto the back of his hand.  
He was wearing far too much eyeliner and hairspray.  
Dani took a piece of paper out of her pocket and smoothed it out onto the counter.

"I'd like to get this, please."

Twelve shaded dark birds, taking flight.  
Dani had wanted to get a tattoo for a while, but she'd never gone ahead with it; worried how it would make her parents feel.  
She had drawn the birds herself. She had never been a very good artist but the picture had been easy enough to do.

The tattooist finished his doodle leisurely, before rising and taking the drawing off of the counter.  
He raised his eyebrows and nodded, bored.

"Where do you want to get it?"

Dani raised her right arm and motioned over her forearm.

The tattooist shrugged and nodded, taking the paper and giving Dani a price.  
Dani agreed, placing her hand over her wallet in her pocket, picturing the precious money leaving her account, but nodding anyway.

The tattooist took her hand and lead her to one of the long seats, instructing her to sit while he cleaned her arm.

"What's with the birds?"

"It's just an idea I had," Dani replied, shrugging.

"Is it like... symbolism?" he'd taken out a pen and was expertly sketching the design onto her arm.

"Yeah," said Dani, smiling shyly, "It's an idea I've had for a while; like me, taking flight."

The tattooist smiled for the first time since Dani had seen him and nodded.

"'Taking flight'? Yeah, I get that," he laughed, starting up the tattoo gun, "You've come to the right city."


	3. New Friends & Old Friends

**A/N: I was going to wait until the next episode was released to write this next chapter because it was going to include Adam Lambert's character; apparently named 'Starchild' and I wanted to see what his personality was like before I wrote him.  
But then I got bored and really wanted to get on with this story so... here it is!  
Thanks for the follows so far, and sorry the last chapter was so short, ****Ale****, hopefully this makes up for it.  
It's quite a big chapter, just because I wanted to get things rolling and establish a character before I introduce Santana (who is coming really soon!)  
Anyway, hope this is okay...**

* * *

The club was placed in an alley, with a door that Dani had to walk past four times before she even noticed it.  
She knew that she had to be in the right vicinity from the faint bass boom that she could feel shaking her bones, but understandably, kept missing the hidden entrance.  
According to the tattoo artist she'd met the previous day, it was a nameless bar, referred to only as 'Obscure' and it was the most exclusive gay bar in New York City.

_"How did you know I was gay?" she'd asked._

_He'd laughed and yanked at her denim vest._

_"You wear this with absolutely no irony."_

He had introduced himself as 'Starchild' and told her to wear whatever she wanted, but to swing by on a Thursday night.

_"Because that's when things get really out of hand."_

_"And that's a good thing?" she'd asked, frowning._

_"Obviously."_

Now, standing in front of the door disguised as a wall, Dani felt uncertain and suspicious. She felt that maybe she should have told someone where she was going tonight, just in case there _was _no club beyond this door and it was just a ruse to trick her into some creepy death lair.  
She suddenly felt like maybe she shouldn't have been so quick to trust someone who willingly called themselves 'Starchild'.  
She sighed and looked down at herself.  
She'd spent over an hour on her makeup - making sure her eyeliner was thick and even, matching three different foundations to her weird in-between seasons skin tone. She'd went out that day and had spent such a long time looking for a dress that she felt tired on her feet. She'd finally settled on something tight and short because she felt fit and thin after such a long day of walking.  
She felt good.  
She looked good.  
And she hadn't made any friends, yet. This was her chance.  
So she leaned forward and gave the dodgy door a push.

The entrance opened up to a dark hallway.  
With a shaky breath, Dani stepped in.

"Hello?" she called, feeling like a cliche.

She looked down at her shoes. If she'd just stepped into a murder story, there was no way she was getting out.

"Hello?" she repeated.

There was no answer so she followed the hall down to where the distant noise was the loudest, feeling at the walls with her hands.  
She found another door and pushed that one open.  
It opened to a stairway leading downwards where the music unmistakably got louder.  
She smiled and almost skipped down the stairs, excited.  
At the end of the stairway, she found another door. There was music blaring beyond the door.  
Dani laughed, happy that she was probably not going to be murdered or sold tonight, but when she tried the handle, she found that it was locked.  
She knocked a few times and then noticed a buzzer and pressed down hard three times.  
The door swung open instantly.  
Dani's mouth dropped open with an audible pop.

"It's beautiful," she blurted.

There were paintings glowing on the wall and boys dancing in cages, and lights. So many lights.  
They hit Dani so hard that she had to shield her eyes for a second while she adjusted.

"What's the password?"

Dani looked up to find a thick man in all black was speaking to her.

"What?!" she shouted over the music.

"Pass! Word!" he shouted.

Dani's heart fell. Starchild hadn't mentioned a password. She supposed that she could guess it.

_New York?_ she thought, _No, that's stupid... Um... gay? Blacklight... Hidden... Starchild? No... all stupid guesses._

But then she'd remembered what Starchild had said about the club being nameless, but about people calling it -

"Obscure?!" she shouted over the music.

The bouncer grinned and nodded.  
Dani grinned back and went to take a step forward, keen to start dancing, when he blocked her with a heavy hand.

"You got any ID, kid?"

* * *

Dani was outside the bar again. She'd gone back up the stairs and was now pacing, barefoot, up and down the darkened hall.

"Stupid, stupid Dani," she was saying.

How had she forgotten to bring her fake ID when she'd left home? She groaned and threw herself back, against the wall, where she slid down until she was sitting.  
She heard tinny laughter fill the halls and looked down, toward the direction of the entrance.  
A girl on her cellphone was heading her way, presumably toward the club.  
Dani stood quickly, determined not to embarrass herself, and slipped her shoes on, ignoring the painful pressure that they supplied against her toes.  
She walked fast, trying to get past the girl without her noticing or acknowledging her when the girl was saying her goodbyes and hit the 'end call' button.  
The girl slowed down and caught Dani's attention.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

"Yeah, it just... got a bit... loud," Dani lied, trying not to embarrass herself by admitting that she'd been turned away.

The girl was quite pretty. Her brown hair stopped just below her ears and she had a ring in her nose.  
That, paired with the way that her eyes were flicking over the places that the dress hugged Dani, told her that she was definitely queer.

"Isn't that a good thing?" the girl smiled.

"Not tonight," Dani lied again, "I've got a bit of a headache."

"Mind if I sit out here with you for a minute?" she asked, "I'm waiting for a friend, anyway."

"Not at all," Dani said, sliding back down the wall again into a pile.

The girl laughed and copied, throwing herself into a matching heap.

"Where are you from?" the girl asked.

"How do you know I'm not from here?"

"'Too loud'," the girl mimicked Dani's voice with a laugh, "A real New Yorker would never say that."

"I suppose that was a giveaway," she smiled.

"Have you had your first New York makeover yet?" the girl was asking.

"I got my first tattoo," Dani said lamely, not sure what the girl had meant.

The girl asked to see it and Dani raised her arm proudly.

"Cute!" the girl said turning away from her and lifting her hair off of her back to reveal a similar design; five black birds on the back of her neck, "I've got some, too!"

The girl thought that this was good and exciting, but it crushed Dani a little to know that her idea had been so cliche.

"What's your name?" the girl asked, "I'm Sarah."

"Dani."

"Do you have a girlfriend, Dani?"

"There was Ginny but she... I mean, we never ended it but we haven't spoken in three months now so I mean I guess I'm single?"

Sarah laughed and placed a hand on Dani's.  
Sarah's phone buzzed in her other hand and she looked down to check it.

"My friend's not coming," she said taking Dani's hand, "So _you_ get to be my friend!"

She pulled Dani to her feet and led her back into the club before Dani could argue but this time, to her surprise, there was no man guarding the door.

"Where's the bouncer?" she asked.

"What bouncer?" Sarah yelled over the music, "There are no bouncers here."

Dani looked up to see the man who had barred her from the door only minutes ago, up in one of the cages, dancing.

_Very funny,_ she thought dryly.

Suddenly, she felt a person wrap themselves around her.

"I was hoping you'd come!"

She couldn't see his face, but knew from the unmistakable stench of hairspray that it had to be the only person that she knew.

"Starchild!" she yelled, squeezing him back.

"You look great!" he shouted, pulling away, "Come and dance!"

Dani took a side glance at Sarah, who was still clinging to Dani's hand, as if to ask her if she wanted to dance.  
Sarah nodded and Dani shook with excitement. A lot had happened in the last five minutes. And she was finally going to get a chance to dance.  
She nodded back to Starchild and let herself be dragged out onto the floor.

* * *

It had taken Dani only weeks after that to undergo, at Sarah's insistence, her official 'New York makeover'.  
All she'd done was lighten her hair and it was mostly meant to shut Sarah up, but after she'd done it, she found that she loved it.  
She also added two more tattoos (at a nice discount, now that she and Starchild were friends) to her total; one on her ribs and one behind her ear.  
At her own impulse, she lightened her hair again until it had gone from its' original dark brown to a light blonde.  
She felt happy and renewed.

And when she'd been away for almost half a year and Ginny had turned up at her door, she was almost unrecognisable.

"Dani?" she asked, her eyes widening.

"Gin... what are you..?"

She had heard from Ginny exactly zero times since she'd moved away. Dani had sent her one email, immediately after settling in but had never heard back.

"I broke up with my boyfriend," she said simply, "I needed to get away for a while so I thought... I'd come and see you."

Dani didn't know that Ginny had gotten a boyfriend. And she was so shocked that she didn't know how to react when Ginny stepped forward and threw her arms around her.

"It's so good to see you."


	4. Stale

**A/N: Just something I wrote really quickly because I got really excited about finally introducing Santana so... here you go!**

* * *

Dani slipped out of bed slowly, trying not to wake Ginny.  
It was almost two, but they both hadn't gone to sleep until early morning, after Dani had returned from her shift.  
She'd been staying for almost a week now, with no obvious intention to leave.  
She stood and zipped herself into her ugly red uniform, sighing as her eyes passed over the tattoo on her arm.  
She had been trying so hard to shed herself of her old life and it had just rolled up, unwelcome, to her door.

And now that Ginny was back, she was expecting things to go back to the way they used to be; secret and shameful.

Dani felt above that, now. Beyond that.  
She was meant to be taking flight, but here she was, just like old times, making out with her secret not-girlfriend. The only difference was her hair and the birds on her forearm that she suddenly kept seeing etched on every second girl in New York.  
Her fresh start was starting to feel stale.

She got to work early, went into the kitchen and poured herself a cup of free coffee, draining it instantly.  
She looked up to see that there was a new girl. Well, new to Dani.  
She looked like she was finishing up a long shift. Maybe their shifts had just never coincided before.  
Although the girl looked tired and worn, there was no arguing that she was gorgeous. Her hair was long and dark, she had full lips and beautiful dark eyes.  
She was thinner than Dani was usually interested in; super skinny, in fact, but had strangely great tits.

_Boob job?_ Dani thought to herself.

The girl looked up and caught her staring. Usually, when caught gawking, Dani would have looked away and blushed. But she felt different today; tired of hiding herself and who she was.  
Instead of averting her gaze, she grinned and winked.  
The girl looked flustered and almost dropped the sugar shakers that she was filling.  
Dani pursed her lips, trying to hold back and laugh and turned away to mark her punch card.

_What was that?_ she thought, blushing and grinning,_ Did _I_ just make that girl nervous?_

Dani tried to shake the thought out of her head, thinking that maybe she had just made the pretty girl nervous because she was staring like a psycho. But she didn't get a chance to ask; by the time she had prepared herself for her shift, the girl had punched out and left.

"Mollie," Dani shouted across the tables to another waitress, "Who was that chick with the long dark hair?"

"I'm working," Mollie said curtly, gathering the mess that an unruly group of teenagers had made on table seven.

"I'll help!" Dani yelped as she clambered over to give Mollie a hand. She waited until the table was clear before she looked up, smiling.

"So... the girl?"

Mollie rolled her eyes. She was nice enough, but quite surly and easy to annoy. For some reason, Dani had taken a real liking to her. Maybe because of her tendency to tell everyone what she was thinking all of the time.

"Santana," Mollie answered, returning the trays of plates and cutlery to the kitchen, "She works mornings, sometimes afternoons."

"You work mornings, don't you, Mol?" Dani asked, raising her eyebrows.

Mollie took a side glance at Dani, shaking her head.

"I'm not swapping shifts with you just so you can gawk at a pretty girl, Dan."

"I'm not going to gawk!" Dani protested.

"Of course you are," Mollie said, tossing the dishes into the sink and wiping down the trays, "You _never_ talk to girls that you like; you never talk to _anyone_."

"I talk!" Dani argued, "I'm talking right now!"

"Please, you were clearly in love with that Sarah girl that used to come in and see you and now you guys barely talk because you never made your move."

"I was not in _love_..." Dani cut herself off, seeing Mollie's face, "Okay, so I _liked_ her."

"And you never said anything."

"And I never said anything," Dani agreed, "but this is different, Santana and I, we had a _moment_."

She didn't bother telling Mollie that that 'moment' was just creepy staring and almost dropped sugar shakers. She felt that information might kill the magic of the story.

"Have you asked Ginny to leave yet?"

Dani pursed her lips and stayed quiet. She had meant to, but she had never quite worked up the courage to talk to her.

"Exactly," Mollie said, crossing her arms, "I'm not taking a graveyard shift just so you can _not_ talk to a girl. You're doing that just fine without me giving up a night of sleep."

Dani crossed her arms, too, and leaned against the wall, thinking.

"How long have you been in New York now, Dani?"

"A few months," she answered.

"You're still so _soft_," Mollie sighed, "You're still timid and pliable. You've changed your hair and inked your skin, but you're still just as suggestible and unhappy as you've always been."

"Wow, thank you," Dani said dryly.

"You need to harden up, Dan, you're on your own now," Mollie said, uncrossing her arms and balancing a tray in her arm for another set of dishes, "No one is going to do these things for you. You need to think about the person you want to be and just... be her."

With that, Mollie spun and left.

_Who do I want to be?_

Dani shrugged to herself and sighed. She knew who she _didn't _want to be. She didn't want to be the kind of person that let Ginny live off of her when she clearly didn't care about her and was only looking for a way out. She wanted to be confident and sure of herself. It seemed that all she'd ever done, besides leaving her parents, was coast. Let things sway her.  
She didn't want to have to be slapped and verbally abused every time she needed a push to do something.  
She wanted to be proactive.

"Moll!" she called, rushing out of the kitchen.

Mollie turned and frowned.

"I'm working!" she growled, "Why don't you try it?"'

"Will you swap shifts with me if I kick Ginny out?"

Mollie smiled and shrugged.

"Ask me after you've done it," she said, still not believing in Dani.

Dani set her jaw and nodded, determined.


End file.
